A mobile stage can be generally defined as a transportable construction to be assembled and disassembled at designated locations, generally outdoors, so as to provide a place where people such as musicians, actors, entertainers, politicians and spokespersons, to name just a few, can appear in front of a live audience. A mobile stage has a framework that generally includes an elevated floor structure and an overhead roof structure supported by column structures. The roof structure can provide a support for scenic equipment such as lights, wide screens, speakers and others, depending on the nature of the event and the venue.
Different arrangements have been suggested over the years in an attempt to simplify the handling of mobile stages as well as to minimize time and labor costs associated with assembling and disassembling them, especially when the mobile stages are only required for a relatively brief period of time at the same location and must be continuously relocated from one site to another. This resulted in a number of arrangements involving foldable frameworks integrated on a chassis that can be hauled by a truck tractor or by another vehicle. Many of these mobile stages have greatly reduced time and labor costs compared to arrangements that require a very large number of separate parts to be transported and assembled/disassembled on-site.
There are numerous challenges in the design of mobile stages and their frameworks. One of them is the handling of articulated floor structures, particularly in implementations that are relatively large in size. These floor structures generally have a plurality of juxtaposed panels that are connected to one another using hinges. Moving these panels from a storage position to a deployed position, and vice-versa, is generally a complex and time-consuming procedure for the operators, particularly when the weight of each panel is important. The movements must be done in a controlled manner and with a relative precision. Relatively small implementations having only two juxtaposed panels can use hydraulic actuators, as shown for instance in GB-2 223 417 A (Barret et al.) published on 11 Apr. 1990 and EP-0 130 634 (Jonckheere) published 17 Dec. 1986. In other implementations, for instance the ones having more successive panels, equipment such as cranes, lifts, hoists and others are used.
Mobile stages of all sizes are inevitably subjected to overall size and/or weight limitations, for instance resulting from the various requirements associated with transporting a load on roads. Having more juxtaposed panels in a same set increases the space in the widthwise direction when the panels are folded and positioned vertically for transportation. The need of a more compact design may remove the space available for actuators as used in conventional designs. Also, the conventional designs having more than two successive pairs of panels are likely to result in portions of hinges projecting from the upper stage floor surface once the panels are horizontal.
Accordingly, there is still room for many improvements in this area of technology.